Helen’s Barroom


My father explains how the woman whose mouth 
slacks open in a coma, whose hospital bed rests 
in the middle of our living room, was different 
in 1967 while dancing at Helen’s Barroom.  
An old man, he forks the final remnants 
of day-old crab rangoon and comments 
upon a car driving too fast outside.  
And this everyday observation is okay 
because more than anything I need to drift
 
with that speeding car which fifty years ago 
would have been driving intently 
toward the town’s only bar. The quiet woman 
in the passenger’s seat, so this first date 
story goes, wore a green dress, 
and the driver, hair buzzed into a flattop, 
delighted in Patsy Cline on the radio.

The night must have promised a lifetime 
of such nights: a hundred years 
of that gravel barroom parking lot crunching 
under the excited steps of brown shoes, 
white heels. A beer-soaked wooden floor, 
the world was Eddy Arnold
on the juke; her fingers promised 
to flutter forever on her beer bottle 
between songs. That young couple,
for those few hours, the envy 
of each drunk shadow on a barstool— 
and me now. 

But my father, grown weary 
of conversation, finishes his paper plate 
of microwaved food and retreats 
to the silence of his bedroom.  
And my mother, with a machine pumping air 
into her lungs, keeps drifting 
further from us along with those nights 
she still rode through town, windows down, 
brown hair blowing, the darkness ahead of them
lost in neon glow.





The El Camino


For my father polishing her each Sunday morning— 
an Old Milwaukee in one hand, a yellow sponge 
in the other. For him singing along with Sam Cooke 
crooning from the tape deck. For Christina’s pink 
and white miniskirt and the way her skin looked 
smoother than any Larry Bird jump shot.  
For that Saturday night in September when my father 
dangled the El Camino’s keys before me
demanding I repeat each of his instructions— 
how the resentment I felt for my father 
who bestowed on that brown behemoth the affection 
he denied my mother disappeared.  
For each Circuit City stockholder whose investments 
resulted in the construction of an unlit parking lot.  
For the El Camino’s six-foot bed 
where my inexperienced fingers tore off Christina’s 
black bra buckle. How we delighted 
in the El Camino’s absorbent springs, 
Christina calling my name as if each letter 
had great significance. For Sam Cooke 
filling the awkward silence of our ride home— 
Christina not kissing me goodnight that night 
or any night after. For my father, the next morning, 
discovering Christina’s torn bra buckle.  
I watched from the kitchen window 
as he ceased his duet with Sam Cooke and considered
the small black clasp. For my father,
who I had learned to ignore whenever he was home,
tossing the evidence to the wind and sidewalk.
For my father dipping his yellow sponge
in a cracked bucket, rivulets of grime dripping
down its sides. For my father, nursing his last
Old Milwaukee, working into that Sunday afternoon,
re-cleaning each inch of the El Camino.

 "Helen's Barroom" was originally published in Pleiades and "The El Camino" first appeared in Tar River Poetry.